Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--

In addition to security concerns the Pope will live in the Vatican to avoid investigations and civil suites arising from the pedophile cases. LINK

quote:The final key consideration is the pope's potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals.

In 2010, for example, Benedict was named as a defendant in a law suit alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for the deaf decades earlier. The lawyers withdrew the case last year and the Vatican said it was a major victory that proved the pope could not be held liable for the actions of abusive priests.

Benedict is currently not named specifically in any other case. The Vatican does not expect any more but is not ruling out the possibility.

"(If he lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state," one source said.

Another official said: "While this was not the main consideration, it certainly is a corollary, a natural result."

After he resigns, Benedict will no longer be the sovereign monarch of the State of Vatican City, which is surrounded by Rome, but will retain Vatican citizenship and residency.

LATERAN PACTS

That would continue to provide him immunity under the provisions of the Lateran Pacts while he is in the Vatican and even if he makes jaunts into Italy as a Vatican citizen.

The 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See, which established Vatican City as a sovereign state, said Vatican City would be "invariably and in every event considered as neutral and inviolable territory".

There have been repeated calls for Benedict's arrest over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

When Benedict went to Britain in 2010, British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins asked authorities to arrest the pope to face questions over the Church's child abuse scandal.

Dawkins and the late British-American journalist Christopher Hitchens commissioned lawyers to explore ways of taking legal action against the pope. Their efforts came to nothing because the pope was a head of state and so enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

In 2011, victims of sexual abuse by the clergy asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and three Vatican officials over sexual abuse.

The New York-based rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and another group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), filed a complaint with the ICC alleging that Vatican officials committed crimes against humanity because they tolerated and enabled sex crimes.

The ICC has not taken up the case but has never said why. It generally does not comment on why it does not take up cases.

NOT LIKE A CEO

The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.

Victims groups have said Benedict, particularly in his previous job at the head of the Vatican's doctrinal department, turned a blind eye to the overall policies of local Churches, which moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and handing them over to authorities.

The Vatican has denied this. The pope has apologized for abuse in the Church, has met with abuse victims on many of his trips, and ordered a major investigation into abuse in Ireland.

But groups representing some of the victims say the Pope will leave office with a stain on his legacy because he was in positions of power in the Vatican for more than three decades, first as a cardinal and then as pope, and should have done more.

The scandals began years before the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005 but the issue has overshadowed his papacy from the beginning, as more and more cases came to light in dioceses across the world.

As recently as last month, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, was stripped by his successor of all public and administrative duties after a thousands of pages of files detailing abuse in the 1980s were made public.

Mahony, who was archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until 2011, has apologized for "mistakes" he made as archbishop, saying he had not been equipped to deal with the problem of sexual misconduct involving children. The pope was not named in that case.

In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of child molestation, the biggest agreement of its kind in the United States.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope "gave the fight against sexual abuse a new impulse, ensuring that new rules were put in place to prevent future abuse and to listen to victims. That was a great merit of his papacy and for that we will be grateful".

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by I B Freeman on 2/17/13 at 9:16 pm to Wally Sparks)

Sounds like the Church is trying to have it's cake and eat it too.

quote:The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican.

They will not defrock Law and Mahoney saying once a Cardinal always a Cardinal but they take no responsibility for their actions saying they were not direct employees of the Vatican.

So is it now the Church's stand that a local bishop can defrock a priest? If so they should get started today.

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by manwich on 2/19/13 at 11:49 am to I B Freeman)

quote:The Vatican has consistently said that a pope cannot be held accountable for cases of abuse committed by others because priests are employees of individual dioceses around the world and not direct employees of the Vatican. It says the head of the church cannot be compared to the CEO of a company.

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by TheOcean on 2/19/13 at 11:59 am to I B Freeman)

quote:In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement with more than 500 victims of child molestation, the biggest agreement of its kind in the United States.

Why is this? Because they know if one of these torts cases goes to the US courts, we'll adopt the English ruling and they'll be paying twice as much.

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by Fat Bastard on 2/19/13 at 12:12 pm to cajunangelle)

quote: "He [Pope Benedict] saw [at the end of Pope John Paul II's pontitifcate] the process of aging and dying, but not in the way the mass media look at it. He saw it with the eyes of a Church man, and understood that actually for some time the Church was left without real governance under a living Pope, or the governance was entrusted to other people. I believe as a witness to this he did not want to repeat this experience in his own life." --Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, in a February 17 Russian television interview on Pope Benedict's decision to step down from the papacy

does anyone actually suspect that the Pope is guilty of covering up or sex abuse himself. I don't mean that he is like the CEO of some gigantic multi national company and some low level comittee in his company did something illegal and he didn't do anything about it so he should be punished. No I mean like the pope was a bishop in a diocese who sent a priest to another parish knowingly covering up a crime.

Just because he wants to stay in the vatican doesn't make him guilty. He is the most visible man in the WORLD even more visible then the president of the United States. Who is also connected to a Church who is seen by the world as the biggest abusers of Children. So wouldn't you think that the world would want to prosecute him just because he is the head of this church, even though he may have never had anything to do with any illegal sexual abuse cover up.

Plus if you read the article it is positive on the Pope saying that what he has done in terms of sexual abuse is good.

But the secular media and the secular world looks at it like this. Because Benedict is the head of a church who has covered up crime every pope should be brought to justice because some how they are responsible for this horrible crime, even though they may speak out against covering up crimes never did it themselves, brought priest in their diocese to justice and always cooperated with the authorities.

I've put out this challenge before if you can show me at instance htat Pope Benedict has a major role in sex abuse cover up. ex. He told bishops to cover up abuse, when he was a bishop he covered up someone who was clearly guilty, or maybe some time long ago he actually abused someone.

The only reason the Pope is having this protection isn't because he actually is guilty of anything, I haven't been shown any proof that he has, but rather the anti-catholic part of the world wants him to be brought for justice for what people under him, even though he has no control over them. The Pope has been living in the vatican for 8 years and during JPII pontificate he was very close to JPII and was in the Vatican alot. He lead a congregation of Cardinals in the Vatican among other things. The simple fact is that the pope wants to stay in the vatican because that has been his home for 8+ years, its not like he wanted to move someone else then he said oh no I might be arrested and he decided ot stay in the vatican. This is just a precautionary method to protect the Pope from Crazies.

asurob1Florida State FanOn the edge of the galaxyMember since May 200916050 posts

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by asurob1 on 2/19/13 at 1:19 pm to catholictigerfan)

quote:The only reason the Pope is having this protection isn't because he actually is guilty of anything, I haven't been shown any proof that he has, but rather the anti-catholic part of the world wants him to be brought for justice for what people under him, even though he has no control over them.

Did you break your spine twisting this?

He's the boss. Holy crap he "is" responsible for the people under him just like any CEO who falls on his sword for something some dumb arse marketing guy does.

The fact that he is "hiding out" in the Vatican to avoid arrest makes him look guilty...whether or not he is.

re: Pope to remain inside Vatican to avoid possible prosecution--(Posted by jonboy on 2/19/13 at 1:34 pm to asurob1)

quote:He's the boss. Holy crap he "is" responsible for the people under him just like any CEO who falls on his sword for something some dumb arse marketing guy does.

Catholic church structure is more like the military than a business. By your logic, the President should be held responsible or even prosecuted for the actions of soldiers during war. So when does Obama go on trial for Manning, Hasan, or any other soldier that is prosecuted during his administration?

quote:The fact that he is "hiding out" in the Vatican to avoid arrest makes him look guilty...whether or not he is.

Hiding out or just staying home as a half blind 85 year old in failing health with a pacemaker?